The present invention concerns a toaster, the housing of which has a toasting chamber presenting an upper opening for the introduction of bread and enclosing at least one electric heating element, at least one toast rack moveable vertically in the chamber between an ejection position and a toasting position, a driver linked to the toast rack, slidably mounted on a vertical column, and having a handle permitting lowering of the toast rack from the ejection position, in which the driver is returned by an elastic means, to the toasting position in which the driver is retained by an unlockable means and in which a finger fixed to the driver closes an end of travel switch.
The invention particularly concerns a toaster of which the driver is equipped with a damper of rising movement comprising a piston sliding vertically in a housing fixed to the driver on a predetermined path and the upper face of which can come in contact with an abutment situated in the housing, as well as an elastic means disposed between said piston and the driver.
Such a damper mounted on the driver of a toaster is described in French Patent FR 9500377 in the name of the applicant. However, the damper described is not entirely satisfactory since it increases the complexity and the space occupied by the driver. In addition, this device does not supply an effective solution to the problem of sliding of the driver along the vertical column. In effect, in order to obtain a trouble free functioning of the toaster, it is necessary to assure that the driver slide along the column without risk of blockage.
In this goal, the vertical column can be lubricated with grease. But this solution is not easy to implement during fabrication of the toaster and the durability of the grease is not sufficiently reliable, particularly because of the proximity of the heating elements.
Another solution, described in the patent FR9500377, consists in equipping the driver with guide wheels that bear on the vertical column. The use of these wheels increases the number of parts and the complexity of the driver, and consequently its fabrication cost.
The goal of the present invention is to remedy these drawbacks by providing a toaster driver equipped with a damper that slides perfectly along the vertical column while retaining a reduced size and number of pieces.
According to the invention, the housing of the driver being tubular, and the piston of the damper being formed of a piece that is also tubular, said housing and piston are mounted coaxially around the vertical column. The damper thus arranged does not increase the size of the driver and the vertical guidance is achieved by the piston.
In an advantageous manner, the height H of the piston of the damper is greater than the height h of the driver to reduce friction and thus the risks of blockage of the piston on the column.
The tubular piece forming the piston of the damper has, preferably, respectively at its upper and lower ends, two bearings in contact with the vertical column in order to improve the sliding of the piston along the column and to tolerate a slight linearity deformation of the column.